Data reporting with
What is The Shoestring?
- Founded in 2017 by artists, activists frustrated
with mainstream media coverage
- Joined the Institute for Nonprofit News in 2022
- Focuses on deep storytelling and investigative
journalism
Coverage areas
- Policing
- Prisons
- Labor
- Education
- Housing
- Environment
- Social Movements
Punched, Tackled, “Brutalized”: Body-Cam Footage Reveals
Police Behavior At UMass Crackdown
What kinds of data stories do we tell? And
where do we get that data?
Federal databases
At the top of the list of the region’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters are two power
plants, according to the EPA data: Vistra Energy’s Masspower plant in Springfield’s
Indian Orchard neighborhood, which produced 283,431 metric tons of CO2
equivalent in 2023, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s physical plant
building, which produced 103,468 metric tons of CO2 equivalent that year.
Other power plants that appear among the EPA’s data include the Massachusetts
Municipal Wholesale Electric Company’s Stony Brook power plant in Ludlow and two
Agawam-based facilities: the Tenaska-owned Berkshire Power plant and Tennessee
Gas Pipeline Station 261, whose parent company is Kinder Morgan.
Two large factories also made the 2023 list of largest greenhouse gas polluters in
the region: the Erving Industries paper mill in Erving and the Eastman Chemical
Company factory in Indian Orchard.
Several landfills are also high on the list of regional greenhouse gas sources. Those
included the capped landfills in Granby, Chicopee, and Northampton. Landfills
constitute a significant source of methane emissions — a greenhouse gas that is at
least 28 times more effective than CO2 at trapping heat in the atmosphere,
according to the EPA. That’s because organic matter that makes it into landfills, like
food scraps and wood products, releases methane when it decomposes.
Corporate Cash Still Flows To McGovern
However, federal records show that while McGovern is keeping to
that pledge to avoid corporate PAC money, cash from business
interests has continued to trickle into McGovern’s campaign
coffers this election cycle. The source? Trade associations and
other industry groups representing some of those same special
interests. It mirrors a trend that has played out in other states, too,
including Vermont and Maine, raising questions about the gaps
that exist in the pledges progressive Democrats have made to
avoid corporate PAC money.
Third-party databases
For Rep. Richard Neal, Corporate Cash Reigns Supreme
A Shoestring analysis of campaign-finance data from the
money-in-politics watchdog group OpenSecrets shows that since his
re-election in 2010, only two other members of the U.S. House have
taken more money from corporate political action committees than
Neal. Neal has raised $12,770,228 during that time period from
corporate PACs — organizations representing big businesses that can
give $5,000 to a candidate for both the primary and general elections
each cycle. That represents 65% of the $19,815,449 Neal raised in total
during the time period.
State databases
Cookouts And Cash: Sheriff Nick Cocchi Raises Big Money To
Run Unopposed
LUDLOW — When election results rolled in Tuesday evening, Hampden
County Sheriff Nick Cocchi comfortably won reelection. After all, he was
the only candidate on the ballot, facing no opposition for a second
six-year term running the county’s jails.
But you wouldn’t know that looking at all of the campaign cash that
poured into Cocchi’s reelection bid. In 2022, Cocchi has raised nearly
$190,000, according to state campaign finance data. That’s more than
any of the other 17 sheriff candidates on the ballot across the
Commonwealth, even those facing competitive elections. Cocchi has
received more campaign contributions than all but three candidates
running for district attorney in 2022, too.
And that’s just this year. In 2021, Cocchi outraised every single
countywide candidate in the state — sheriffs and DAs alike. Since
August 2021, when Cocchi first announced his reelection campaign at
his annual cookout, he has raked in $288,757 and spent $185,411. In a
race that was never contested, Cocchi wielded an electoral machine
unmatched by any other sheriff candidate in the state.
Other state agencies with open data portals
Remember: journalism is people-centered
Trespassing Charges Create “Dragnet” In Holyoke, Public
Defenders Say
Trespassing arrests have recently doubled at Holyoke’s most policed apartment
complexes. Unlike most, Osvaldo Soto-Berrios decided to fight his case.
HOLYOKE — Dropping in for a visit one February morning, Osvaldo Soto-Berrios was
on his mother-in-law’s rear porch on Appleton Street when two police officers
climbed the stairs and quickly arrested him and two others on trespassing charges.
The police alleged Soto-Berrios had no “legitimate purpose” to be at the apartment
building. But that was a surprise to Soto-Berrios, who often visits to help with house
care. His mother-in-law has a foot injury that makes it hard for her to move around
the 40-unit apartment building, he told The Shoestring, and that day he was taking
out the trash for her.
“I don’t have the key to the front so I have to go around back,” Soto-Berrios said in
Spanish ahead of a June court date in the case. “I don’t want to be seen as a bad
person for going there to do a favor.”
His attorney, public defender Alex Weinstein, said the charges lacked the factual
information needed to prove that Soto-Berrios was “without right” to be at the
apartment. Arguing to dismiss the case in front of a Holyoke District Court judge,
Weinstein pointed out that the majority of the Holyoke Police Department’s report on
the incident described the “pursuit, search, and arrest of an unrelated individual” and
only mentioned Soto-Berrios three times.
Where do you think the reporter met with
Osvaldo? How did she see his case play out?
Sotto-Berrios’ case is not unique.
It’s a consistent pattern in Holyoke District Court, according
to data obtained by The Shoestring and interviews with the
Committee for Public Counsel Services, the organization
that represents clients in Massachusetts who can’t afford
their own attorney. Public defenders such as Kate Murdock,
the attorney in charge of the CPCS office in Holyoke, say
many of their clients are affected by arrests on trespassing
and other misdemeanor charges, leading to “surprising and
problematic results.”
The Shoestring obtained data on the number of trespassing arrests
since 2020 at three different hot-spot buildings in Holyoke: 294 Elm
St., 365 Appleton St., and 145 Essex St. The data show a large
number of trespassing arrests at those locations — 201 in total
from January 1, 2020, to June 17, 2024.
Murdock said her office represents many clients who got arrested
for “merely being present at a building,” whether that was because
they were staying with family, visiting a friend, or passing through.
Although police officers have legal authority to stop people and ask
questions about their whereabouts, Murdock said this can lead to a
wide “dragnet” of court cases.
“These things always affect the most vulnerable,” Murdock said.
Data show that those arrests have only increased since October of last year, when a
stray bullet from a shootout at the intersection of Maple and Sargeant streets, just
half a mile away from Appleton Street, injured 29-year-old Selena Santana while she
was riding the bus and resulted in her unborn baby’s death.
In response, Garcia proposed “Ezekiel’s Plan,” which would have funneled an
additional $1 million to the police department, largely to hire 13 more officers and
install a city-wide camera system. Though the City Council vetoed the proposal,
Garcia and his police department still increased police patrols and housing
inspections. In December, The Republican reported police enforcement increased
largely in Holyoke’s historically poorer neighborhoods. Many of the arrests police
made were on simple drug-possession charges, according to the newspaper.
In July, the Daily Hampshire Gazette quoted Garcia saying that over the past seven
months, Holyoke police have made “more than 200 arrests for criminal activities
such as drug trafficking and firearm possession.” It’s unclear whether those arrests
included trespassing and how many of them were for lower-level drug possession
charges.
According to police records, between Jan. 1, 2020 and Oct. 4, 2023, when
Santana was shot, officers made 137 trespassing arrests at the three hot-spot
locations The Shoestring examined. That’s three arrests per month in a
45-month period. Between Oct. 4, 2023 and June 17, 2024, police made 64
arrests — nearly seven per month.
However, in the vast majority of these cases, police did not find any evidence
of drug distribution or trafficking. Arrest data show that of the 64 trespassing
arrests made at those three locations since the October shooting, police only
charged three of those people with drug-distribution or trafficking of any kind.
By comparison, police charged 25 of those 64 people with drug possession
charges but no drug-dealing charges.
How did we get that data?
AKA
What is a public records request?
● A formal request for documents/data
created by a public entity. In other words,
any document created by a
taxpayer-funded agency, department,
school, etc.
What are some examples of public entities?
How to file a public records request in Mass:
● Figure out what department/agency has
the records you want.
● Who is that department’s “records
access officer”?
● Email them!
To Whom It May Concern,
My name is Melanie Duronio and I’m a reporter at a local news outlet called The Shoestring. Under the state’s public records law, I am
requesting the following information from the Holyoke Police Department:
Data showing the number of arrests the Holyoke Police Department has made for trespassing from Oct. 4, 2023, to present day at the
following street addresses:
- 294 Elm St. or any other street addresses associated with that building, including 296 or 298 Elm St.
- 145 Essex St. and any other street addresses connected to that building, including but not limited to 149 Essex St. and 212
Walnut St.
- 365 Appleton and any other street addresses connected to that building, including but not limited to 177 Elm St.
Please also include the following:
- The racial/demographic breakdown of the people arrested in the above data.
Thanks so much in advance for your help. Please don't hesitate to call me at 978-799-8858 if I can make this request easier for you to
fulfill. If the department intends to deny this request, please state the specific exemption to the public records law being used as the
basis for that decision.
Sincerely,
Melanie
Some tips
- Be as specific as possible with dates and the kind of data you’re
looking for
- Ask for the original data in a .csv format
- If possible, the agency has to give you machine-readable data
- Beware malicious compliance
- Think they owe you a better response? Appeal!
CONTACT ME:
● Email: dchristensen@smith.edu
